Control Options

Irrational also revealed three separate controller layouts (Default, Marksman, and Retro) and the ability to tweak aim assist, sensitivity, vibration, and look inversion. Infinite also includes multiple analog stick configurations:

Default (Look on right stick, Move on left)

Southpaw (opposite of Default)

Legacy (for those GoldenEye fans)

Legacy Southpaw

The left or right analog stick can also be swapped with a D-Pad. All UI's in the game are controllable via either keyboard and mouse or the console controller, and you can switch back and forth between the two input paradigms without ever pausing the game. [2]

Graphics Options

BioShock Infinite will support widescreen gaming, including “horizontal plus” widescreen support and multi-monitor gaming with AMD Eyefinity, NVIDIA Surround, and Matrox TripleHead2Go. You’ll also have separate controls for aspect ratio, resolution, and display mode (fullscreen, windowed, and fullscreen windowed).

Infinite includes six different graphics presets, from “Very Low” to “Ultra,” providing a wide range of quality-versus-performance options. Gamers who want to tweak those further can switch to a Custom configuration, which gives you control over anti-aliasing, texture detail, texture filtering, dynamic shadows, post-processing, light shafts, ambient occlusion, and object level of detail. Many of these options have setting levels that are only available under DX11.

Infinite also includes in-game V-Sync and FOV adjustment controls. [3]

The PC Version Difference

As explained by Irrational technical director Chris Kline:

"Playing the PC version on Medium settings is fairly close to the console version, though higher quality in a few areas. As you go up from there to the High, Very High, and Ultra settings the difference is enormous.

The PC version ships on three discs, as opposed to one for consoles, to accommodate the higher-resolution content we provide for the PC. This really stands out when you play on the higher detail settings and higher resolutions that the PC allows. Irrational Games is known for all the detail we put into our worlds and the higher detail settings available on PC give us even more to work with.

Higher-end PC settings also activate on higher-quality versions of many of our core rendering features. For example, we show more objects and particles at longer distances and greater detail. We use a higher-precision color buffer for improved scene quality. Textures stream in more quickly, and we use higher quality texture filtering. More objects cast shadows, shadows are higher-resolution and blend more smoothly into the scene.

Though you only need DX10 hardware to play, if you have DX11 hardware you'll be able to turn on high-end PC-only features like Contact Hardening Shadows, High Definition Ambient Occlusion, and Diffusion Depth of Field. In particular, the HDAO and DDoF will take full advantage of the DX11 Compute Shader capability in high-end hardware, and our FXAA implementation is optimized for Shader Model 5." [4]